


The value of water

by Dispatches (orphan_account)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: sga_flashfic, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-11
Updated: 2010-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Dispatches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag for "Tao of Rodney". For the "scars" challenge. <i>She remembers Charin talking, her voice like rustling paper, </i>ah, child, nobody knows the value of water until the wells run dry<i>, as if her entire life had not been a succession of dry wells.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The value of water

_ **The Value of Water (Scars challenge)** _

Block. Duck. Tap the left knee, hard, then slide to the right. "You are moving more slowly than usual."

"Give me a second."

"Hm." Twist, sidestep, jab to the kidneys, slam the back of the knees, sticks crossed at the throat as he drops.

She steps back and lets him rise shakily to his feet, his shoulderblades working as if he were trying to dislodge a caterpillar. "Ronon, are you well?" she says when he faces her again, sticks held high and ready. "I have never been able to drop you like that before."

"I'm fine." He rushes her, as ever showing more force than finesse, leaving himself open to those defenses that channel the attacker's energy back at him. She counters his attack easily and lays him flat on his back.

"You are not fine," she says, looking down into his eyes to read his worries there. "Is something troubling you?"

He twitches, wriggles from side to side, the same motion in his shoulders as before. "It's nothing," he says, "it doesn't matter," but he still lies there, not making any move to rise.

With a soft exhalation, she tosses her sticks aside and drops to her haunches, resting one hand on his chest. "Ronon. Speak to me."

His eyes squeeze shut, then snap open, fixing her with a glare that might make her shiver if she were another woman, if she had not seen Ronon drunk and close to tears the night he discovered another living Satedan. "You are not made of stone," she says softly, moving her hand to his cheek. "You must -- "

"Release my burden?"

"Yes," she says, ignoring the irony in his tone, the quirk of his mouth against her palm. "You are distracted. You are not fighting well." She draws her hand away, reluctantly. "You need not speak to me, but you must speak to someone. Whatever it is that troubles you may trouble you into an early grave if it keeps you from fighting as well as you can."

He sits up. "Did McKay do something for you?"

The question brings a sting to her throat. She blinks, slowly, and takes a breath before she answers. "Yes," she says, the taste of the tea suddenly vivid in her mouth, Rodney speaking the words of the ceremony in precise, accented Athosian. _Oh, no, you can cry,_ he had said when he passed her the cup and her voice broke on the ritual thanksgiving. _Halling said it's the mourner's right to weep. I am here to bear witness._ And she had wept, let the tears overflow her eyes as she drank to her father's memory, though it was not for her father that they flowed.

She opens her mouth to speak, and finds she cannot. Instead she holds Ronon's gaze and lets the memory well up inside her.

"I didn't even like him that much," he says, smiling, his voice soft in a way she has never heard before. She remembers Charin talking, her voice like rustling paper, _ah, child, nobody knows the value of water until the wells run dry_, as if her entire life had not been a succession of dry wells. Even here, in the city of the Ancestors, surrounded by water in more ways than one, the wells keep on running dry.

"Ronon -- " She reaches for words and finds none, so instead she reaches for his face, pulls it down to hers, touching his forehead to her own. His lips move soundlessly and he rests his hands on her neck. For a dizzying moment she thinks he has misunderstood, but he pulls away (not quickly enough to be rude) and stands up, turning his back to her and pulling his shirt over his head.

It takes her a second to understand the tension in his shoulders. Before she can stop herself, she has risen to her feet and spread her hands across his back, across the place where the scars used to be. "He did this?"

He nods, and Teyla's breath catches in her throat.

"I don't know what I -- " He twists his head to look at her. "It feels... different."

For the first time since she met him, she feels older than him. Looking at him now, she thinks of herd animals born at night so that only the stars will see them as they struggle to find their feet upon the ground. "You are... off balance," she says, _reborn,_, she thinks, _cleansed of the past and made new_.

He looks away at that, steps out of reach of her hands and puts his shirt back on, his eyes avoiding hers. "I'll get used to it," he says, turning around and scooping up her sticks. "Another round?"

She takes the sticks from him, but shakes her head. Once more she reaches for words and feels them slipping away from her. _Second chances. Your skin is new. So soft. Do you know how soft you are? Not made of stone, no. Not made of stone._ "I think we have done enough for today," she says, gripping the sticks hard so that she will not reach for him. A soft touch might bruise him where a hard blow would leave no mark.

He leaves with a grunt and a nod, and she lets go of her sticks and drops to the floor like a puppet whose strings have been cut. _Ah, Charin,_ she thinks, _why did you never tell me how a well can gush forth water after years of yielding nothing but dust?_

She presses her hands to her face and breathes deeply.

[end]


End file.
